‘There’s No Place like It’: Six-Time World Champ Jordan Burroughs Discusses Recent Trip to Stillwater

Jordan Burroughs said Monday that his son is still going to Nebraska (where Burroughs won two national titles), but that David Taylor is doing a “pretty damn good job” in Stillwater.

Burroughs, an Olympic gold medalist and six-time world champion, was in Stillwater at the end of last month, where he ran a Cowboy RTC practice and made a stop by Coleman Scott’s new training center called The Farm.

Burroughs was on Flo Radio Live on Monday morning, where he hit on a variety of wrestling-related topics, including his trip to Payne County. He went in depth on what Taylor, Oklahoma State and Stillwater have done to create a wrestling eutopia of sorts. Burroughs broke it down in four parts.

“The first thing he’s done really well is surround himself with high-level coaches with great experience,” Burroughs said. “Veterans in the game — Kevin Ward, Bryan Pearsall, Jimmy Kennedy, Tyler Caldwell — guys who have done a really good job, have been in the game a long time, can navigate all of the logistics of compliance and scheduling and scholarships. So all he has to do is be the face and go out and make sure he inspires the guys the right way.

“Second, he hasn’t missed on any recruits. He’s got all the guys he’s wanted — Dreshaun Ross, Jax Forrest, the Raney twins, Sergio Vega, Kody Routledge. He’s getting all the best guys, which also leads me to another example: you need talent. You need talent. I don’t care how great of a coach you are, how much you can influence the diamonds in the rough. Those guys are extremely rare. You need talent in the room, and he has it.  When I was there, I wrestled with Casey Swiderski, and Dean Hamiti, and Caleb Fish, and Dee Lockett and Mirzo (Kayitov), and all these guys. Oh, and on top of it, he’s got Zo (Zoheir El Ouarraqe) as an RTC coach and also his new addition in Lee Roper.”

So, steps one and two can be combined into the people Taylor has surrounded himself with. Taylor put together a young but experienced staff — guys who know the ropes of college coaching and are also young enough to help with the training.

And the recruiting has spoken for itself. As Burroughs got into, Taylor has four of the top six wrestlers in the 2026 recruiting class (Forrest, Ross and the Raneys) committed and that doesn’t even included all the work the Cowboys have done in the portal.

The next point Burroughs hit on is about the ecosystem of wrestling. From the Cowboy Wrestling Club, to The Farm, to Stillwater High School, to OSU, to the RTC — there’s not much of a need to go anywhere else.

“They have a pipeline,” Burroughs said. “From the root to the fruit. From inception, cradle to the grave. You can live in a single city and do every single moment of your career. There’s no place like it. …

“From the time you’re 5 until you’re 35, you can literally spend all in the same city. There’s very few places you can do that. That’s the blueprint. He’s pretty much laid out the blueprint of here’s what you need to do to have a successful collegiate program, and it doesn’t take coaching chops.”

Lastly, Burroughs pointed out that while most college coaches are having to deal with the transition to the NIL era, it’s all that Taylor has coached in. That type of understanding helps and so does the fact that Paycom CEO Chad Richison is involved.

“A lot of older coaches that have been in the game a long time, they’ve had to actively try to make terms and come to grips with the fact that they’ve gotta pay athletes most of the time more money than they’re making as a coach,” Burroughs said. “That’s really hard. It’s a hard mental transition for these guys, but for him, it’s all he knows. And he’s got a blank checkbook, which helps as well.”

By the way Burroughs talked about his visit, it might’ve also been a bit of him feeling out what the college coaching world is all about. Although he didn’t wrestle this summer, Burroughs said he isn’t retired yet, but he also mentioned that he asked John Smith if he should be a college coach and that Smith said “absolutely.”

Burroughs called Taylor the “guinea pig” of their era of guys stepping into the college coaching world. So maybe one day in the not-too-distant future Taylor and Burroughs on on opposite sides of the mat from each other not as wrestlers, but as coaches.

“He’s got me thinking a lot about college coaching and the possibility of it, but you need money,” Burroughs said. “You need money, but the blueprint is there and if the right offer comes to the table, I would definitely be willing to sit down and talk about it.”